uMabhengwaneI found this one while translating, as usual, and noted it down while I searched for ‘intimacy’ and ‘alienation’ (it’s a marriage preparation course – interesting linguistically because so many of the English words relating to romance and love and relationships are based on only two or three roots in isiZulu). When I came to […]
My wife’s sms comes through mid-morning: how would you define an ideophone? I imagine the conversation diverging from the task at hand, the English teachers (supposed to be) discussing next term’s syllabus and sharing out the work for it, and the sudden foray into isiZulu linguistics. I try to figure out what the best approach […]
In the last traces of the Indian summer, before the suddenness of this winter’s arrival this morning, my father smses me to tell me that he’s seen the way the drongoes have been flying, and he says: intengu iyabika ubusika kanye noheshe the drongo warns of the winter, as does the hawk {I see immediately […]
The other night, as I was listening to Abasikibebunda on uKhozi FM, uMongameli Zuma announced to the world the name of the ill-fated and ill-considered mission of the SANDF to the Central African Republic – Operation Vimbezela. So, like any linguist with a political upbringing, I checked the meaning. (As a side note, it’s wonderful […]
Dambuza (my step-son) is learning the days of the week in isiZulu. So, in the heat of a late Friday evening, unable to sleep, we’re sitting on the floor of his room. And I have my left hand up, the palm towards me. “So, siyaqala ngesandla sobunxele. We start with the left hand. Specifically, we […]
Happy New Year to everyone! Ngithemba ukuthi ningene kahle kunyaka omusha (I hope you entered the new year well). There is some linguistic and anthropological interest in this day, when looked at from the perspective of isiZulu – mainly because of its special place as a borrowed custom. The isiZulu word for New Year is […]
Thi and its routes, again. “…bakhona abanohlelo oluTHIze…” There are people with certain ‘agendas’, as opposed to ‘plans’, …as part of a conversation between uKhozi FM’s political analyst and the Vuka Mzansi presenter, Linda Sibiya, Mr Magic. The relative (a type of qualificative word in isiZulu – adjectives, relatives, enumeratives and possessives all ‘qualify’ the […]
Post by Maurice Mackenzie > Nodumo! Isikhova isisilwane esiphila ebusuku, esizingela namehlo alandela izindlebe ezicosha umsindwana ozo veza izilwane ezi phuma sekuhlwile. Sidalwe nobuhlakana olungapezu’kwezinye izilwane. Abadala bathe simela abaphansi ngoba ima sikhala kungathi kumemezana amadlozi noma amandiki. Ngqungqulu ‘dla madoda Translation by Cullen Mackenzie > One-who-thunders-with-thought! The owl is a creature that lives at […]
There are two separate ideas that converge in this word, along with the strange shapes that they make with your mouth when you say it. The first idea is that of ‘winnowing’ or sifting, from the ur-Bantu stem -ĸuŋga, meaning ‘sift’. And the second centres on what I would argue is the nominalised form of […]
Headline from November 1st’s Isolezwe: Waphuza ugologo wadlwengula ugogo. Horrific but rhetorically interesting. The phrase contains homoeoarxheia (words sharing the same prefix), alliteration (words sharing consonants), assonance (words sharing vowel-sounds) and it scans as a pair of semi-inverted 7-beat dactylic pentameters: {long-short-short / short-short-long / short} where Greek would have : ‘Raspberry Strawberry Jam’ {long-short-short […]
uMabhengwane